📔 satchel

Regina, she's been named. Queen. She was Altair itself, plucked from its constellation, taken from the sky; swift, bright, and precious. Sometimes Axl stared at her ー at the way she glowed, light spreading across the darkness, honey dousing the tables, the paintings, and even himself ー and when he looked away, she was still pressed to his eyelids. Her cream soft skin. The lily beauty of her hair. The dancer-like curve of her neck.

He remembers how he greeted her. Bowing low, hand on his heart. Reverence.

"Goddess," he had said.

Regina laughed. As clear as spring fountain water falling upon stone and moss.

"Oh, definitely not."

But her eyes were like clear-eyed Athena, and Aphrodite lived in the curve of her hip, the demure angles of her face. How could she not be a goddess, when her hands were just like that peerless huntress Artemis: fierce, ancient and wild.

"I'm not a God." She told him, terribly amused, and she said nothing more. "If I was, I wouldn't be here."

Axl frowned at that. Right. The Demon King had trapped her here.

He won't rest until she was free.

The gladiator rested his eyes. Which meant he missed the cruel curl of her lips.

Underneath all his punches and chains is the kindest bit of humanity Alt has ever seen.

Everyone, including Axl himself, thinks that the gladiator is built from pieces of the wild. Smiles in the shape of bared fangs and his hands like a bear's ー too large and too sharp for anything gentle.

Those hands are on Alt's waist, thumbing soft circles into his hip. He's humming to himself, some unknown tune that rumbles through his chest. Limbs tangle; Alt's ankles knocking against Axl's foot underneath their blanket. Alt leans up. To kiss his boyish grin. To bury his face in his tangled hair.

It smells of sun and citrus. Only he knows this.

Lazily, Axl takes to his neck, retracing where his lips had touched before. His pulse. His collarbones. His shoulders. Alt's palms find his face, cupping it. Axl says nothing. Instead he kisses him, breathing honey and warmth into Alt's throat.